Thursday, April 7, 2016

Art Isn't Easy

"Orange and Yellow" by Mark Rothko

Back in 1931, the Westport Country
Playhouse’s inaugural season, several plays were presented in repertory, that
is, several plays alternated daily. This also occurred in the 1932 and 1935
seasons, but the repertory concept was soon abandoned and wasn’t attempted
again until the mid-1960s. That’s about to change this year, for the Playhouse
will be opening its 2016 season with two plays in repertory, Red, by John Logan, and Art, by Yasmina Reza, in a translation
by Christopher Hampton. Both plays won Tonys for Best Play, Art in 1998 and Red in 2010.

Yasmina Reza

John Logan

The idea of attempting this has
been gestating for several years, and when Mark Lamos, the Playhouse’s artistic
director, who is also directing both plays, read the scripts he believed there
was a compelling reason to present them in tandem.

Mark Lamos

In its simplest form, Art is about how we evaluate and
quantify art as both commodity and possession, while Red focuses on the mystique of creating art.

In the style of Reza’s other well-known
play, God of Carnage, Art begins innocently enough with Serge
(to be played by John Skelley) buying a painting for an exorbitant amount, a painting
created by an artist named Antrios (based on the real-life painter Robert
Ryman).

"Series # 17 (White)" -- Robert Ryman

He believes his friends, Marc (Benton Greene) and Yvan (Sean Dugan),
will approve of his acquisition. When Serge urges Marc to look at the painting
“from this angle,” Marc’s response is: “You paid two hundred thousand francs
for this shit?” The “shit,” as it were, is a painting that is, well, white, or
white-on-white – think lines of milk poured on a field of snow. Yvan’s response
is relative: when he is with Marc he agrees the painting is worthless, when he
is with Serge he approves. This monochromatic work of art will be the catalyst
for a testing of friendship and heated discussions about what we value and why
we value it.

Mark Rothko in his studio. Photo by Henry Elkan

Set in the late 50s, Red brings us inside an artist’s studio
– Mark Rothko’s studio, to be specific. Much like Ryman, Rothko is, although he
shuns the description, an abstract expressionist, but his paintings are
anything but monochromatic. As Serge urged Marc to see his prized painting from
a different “angle,” Rothko (Stephen Rowe) asks his new assistant, Ken (Patrick
Andrews), “What do you see?”

Rothko has been commissioned to
paint a series of murals to be hung in the Four Seasons restaurant, which is to
be nested inside the Seagram’s building currently under construction. Ken, an
artist himself, is initially nothing more than a gofer, running out to buy
cigarettes and mixing paints, but he soon begins to challenge Rothko’s artistic
theories and the integrity of producing art for a commercial venue.

While the color white is central to
Art, it is, as the play’s title
suggests, red that is central to Logan’s play, for not only does Rothko provide
both a philosophical and psychological evaluation of Matisse’s painting, “Red
Studio,” in a revealing moment he tells Ken: "There is only one thing I
fear in life, my friend... One day the black will swallow the red."

"Red Studio" by Henri Matisse

It is challenging enough to board
one play, but to prepare two at the same time can be somewhat daunting.
Recently, I met with Lamos at Theatre Row Studios in Manhattan, where he is rehearsing both plays,
to talk with him about the decision to return to the repertory format, the
challenges inherent, and his take on the two plays’ synergy.

My initial question for Lamos was
“Why?”

He smiled, shrugged, and said, “I
though it would be interesting, that’s all.” He went on to explain: “We read
both plays for season consideration over the years and somehow, two years ago,
it just coalesced as an idea: why don’t we try to do them together and see if
they speak to each other.” In essence, the decision, as Lamos put it, “was just
a little bit of a caprice.”

The decision, however, was not
without its challenges. Lamos initially downplayed the task. “It’s not yet as
difficult as I thought it might be,” he said, “but I’ve been gearing up for it
for quite awhile. I think the one area I’m feeling a little challenged is
wishing we had just a little more rehearsal time for one of them.” Lamos
declined to name which of the two plays he was referring to. “You know,” he
explained, “it’s like having two children. One needs a little more TLC. I’m
also finding it (referring to the play in need of a bit more “tender loving care”)
just a little bit more of a challenge as a director, which I knew would happen,
but I’m having to think about the play – I’m having to overturn how I thought
about it and come to another understanding of it as we are working on it.”

The initial idea that the two plays
would “talk” to each other is still in place, but as Lamos works with the
actors, he has started to gain a greater appreciation for one of the plays.
“I’m very impressed with Red,” he
said. “I’m more impressed every day. I just find the themes of the play are
very relevant to my work and the way I think about art and the way I think
about making art, and the philosophy behind artists’ work. All of this I find
very exciting to work on every day. Even thought it’s fictionalized, you’re in
the room with Mark Rothko, this titan, who thinks about what he makes in such a
powerful way and with so many ramifications: music and philosophy and religion.
All of them come into play and they’re just great fun to ‘chew on’ with the
actors as we get deeper and deeper into it.”

Turning to the other play, Art, Lamos noted that “what’s wonderful
is the almost dance-like quality of the words. It’s ‘Boulevard,’ French
theater,” he said, referring to a style of theater that emerged in France in
the 18th century and became associated with the bourgeoisie, with
dialogue that is realistic but often set in a somewhat hyper-realistic
situation with the intent of surprising the audience.

“The dialogue is elegant, light of
touch, and finding that tone is very exciting when it happens,” Lamos said,
“and it’s a real chamber piece, it’s a trio. The actors have to understand that
they are playing the same music all of the time even as the key changes and the
rhythm changes. That’s fascinating. It’s much more of an ensemble play than Red is.”

As for the plays, so different in
style, speaking to each other, Lamos made these points. “Red begins with the words, ‘What do you see?’ and the two
characters are made to look, to
constantly evaluate what they are making and what they are perceiving, and in Art the characters are madeto look as well, and they jump to
conclusions. Both paintings – the painters in both plays -- are pretty much of
the same school – creating overall abstractions that are very sensual and
extremely abstract, for better or worse, and with lots of strange use of color
here and there. So both plays are about looking at art and in both plays, art
has this enormous effect on the five men in the two plays. It pushes them
apart, it brings them together, it causes them to reevaluate what they are
looking at, it causes them to reevaluate their relationships with each other;
they’re constantly having to adjust themselves to art.”

However, there’s something else
going on in the two plays, which only have male characters. Lamos addressed
this point as well. “Both plays are also very much about male relationships and
how men react to each other, how they deal with each other, how their egos
drive them. So a lot of what is very interesting to work on is the ‘maleness’
of the plays, the ‘maleness’ that the paintings bring forth in terrible ways or
good ways.”

Both productions are in periods of
gestation, and a lot of work still has to be done, some of it awaiting the
moment when the rehearsals move from Manhattan
to the stage at Westport.
For example, it is there that certain decisions about how to handle the
transitions in Art – there are no
true scene changes – will be dealt with. Lamos’s original thoughts were to
handle these changes with sound cues or subtle lighting changes. His tech crew
suggested that the actors themselves will be able to handle it. It will be
worked out in the tech rehearsals. At least for Red, one production decision has already been made, the “paint”
that the actors will be sloshing about will be a mixture of corn starch and
pigment powder.

There was also the question of the sets
for the two plays, a challenge for scenic designer Allen Moyer. Since the plays
will be shown on alternate nights, the sets, perforce, have to be relatively
simple. For Red, the entire stage
will be Rothko’s studio, with one complete “Four Seasons” painting hanging and
others representing works in progress. For Art,
an enclosed space representing an up-scale apartment will be set within the
studio format so, as Lamos described it, a “studio will hover around the
apartment.”

Although Lamos hopes that people
will see both plays, he doesn’t offer advice about which play to see first –
for him, apparently, the synergy works both ways. As for whether the Playhouse
will attempt to present other plays in a rep format, that remains to be seen.
Lamos did note, however, that everyone, from office staff to marketing to the
production staff is “jazzed about” what they are attempting.

So, if we stand back for a second
and considers what we, in May, are about “to see,” we have two Tony-award
winning plays with a cast of accomplished actors, directed by a man who has
given a lot of thought about the ‘art’ he is creating. The two productions will
deal with multiple aspects of art, the creating of art, the viewing of art, and
the buying and collecting of art, as well as the emotions generated.

At the close of Red, Rothko puts his hand on Ken’s
chest, where his heart is, and says: “Make something new.” That’s what Lamos
and all involved at the Westport Country Playhouse are attempting to do.

The run is from May 3 -- 29, "Art" on even-numbered days and "Red" on odd-numbered days.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit
www.westportplayhouse.org or call the box office at (203) 227-4177, toll-free
at 1-888-927-7529, or visit Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, Westport.